MTS

MTS partnered with another Russian telecommunications operator, to provide internet access to 20,000 residents in a remote region of Russia. The company also reports on the number of its employees with disabilities and discloses how it audits the accessibility of its workplaces. MTS discloses its community investments as well as taxes paid and employees in its operational markets.

The company supports digital literacy through its Tablet from Scratch and #TeachYourCloseOnes, which is aimed at children and the elderly and also helps to connect children with their grandparents, as children are encouraged to teach the elderly throughout the course. The company’s Armenian subsidiary provided free access to educational sites in response to COVID-19 and donated 500 smartphones to school children from low-income families for online learning.

The company monitors cybersecurity through a security operations centre and in 2020 gained an information security management certification. The company also demonstrates initiatives for child online safety.

The company partners with universities on projects relating to artificial intelligence, the internet of things, big data and digital health. MTS supports the tech innovation ecosystem through a venture capital fund as well as an accelerator program for start-ups which also has a track for social start-ups. The company uses the SDGs as a framework for its priorities.

MTS should support initiatives for digital inclusion for women and girls. The company has an opportunity to integrate more accessibility features into its products for people with disabilities. MTS could also disclose subsidiaries’ economic value distribution among stakeholders. It used to report taxes paid by subsidiaries and should resume this practice.

MTS could disclose additional information about its digital skills initiatives. The company also has an opportunity to implement new programmes for intermediate and technical digital skills development which used to exist in the past.

The company used to report the number of data breaches it experienced, but stopped doing so in 2019. It should resume this practice. It also has an opportunity to disclose more information about senior-level oversight for cybersecurity, introduce a group-level data privacy policy and make a high-level commitment to protect children online.

MTS has an opportunity to disclose how it contributes to diverse, inclusive and ethical research. Specifically, it should report the number of women it employs in technical roles and how it applies ethical considerations in its research and development, particularly AI.

MTS commits to respect human rights and has a publicly available statement of policy that expects its business relationships to commit to respecting the ILO core labour rights. However, the company does not commit its own operations to respect all the labour fundamentals outlined by the ILO core labour rights. Although the company states that relevant human rights risks are reviewed regularly, it does not disclose a process to identify, assess and take action of salient human rights risks in its operations and business relationships. MTS does, however, have a grievance mechanism accessible to both workers and external stakeholders to raise human rights concerns and complaints.

MTS publicly commits to respecting the health and safety of workers, and places health and safety expectations on its business relationships and monitors their performance. However, the company does not disclose the percentage of its workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements and provides no relevant evidence in relation to paying its workers a living wage. Furthermore, it does not specify that it does not require workers to work more than regular and overtime hours. MTS provides a breakdown of employees in different employee categories by three indicators of diversity, including age and gender, but has an opportunity to disclose against more indicators of diversity, such as race and ethnicity, per employee category. Furthermore, MTS has an opportunity to commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment in a public policy document.

MTS has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption and includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in contracts with its business relationships. Furthermore, the company takes steps to identify and address bribery and corruption and has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns and complaints. While the company discloses the country-by-country taxes it has paid in its main operational markets, it does not disclose a global tax strategy or income tax payments for all of its tax jurisdictions. Similarly, while MTS specifies that it does not make political contributions, it does not disclose its overarching approach to lobbying and political engagement in a public policy statement.

The below datasheet disaggregates scores within the three core social measurement areas and by specific indicators.